Safeways Here We Come

Biography

The band was started after Kyle "KJ" Jansen, Mark O'Flaherty and Mike Eggermont started selling Chixdiggit! T-shirts at their high-school, although at this stage the band did not officially exist. Eventually the shirts started selling well, which provided the band with enough money to purchase a drum kit. However none of the band members had any musical experience nor did any of the members own instruments (except Mark who owned a classical guitar). Mike took up playing Bass and because "KJ coul...

The band was started after Kyle "KJ" Jansen, Mark O'Flaherty and Mike Eggermont started selling Chixdiggit! T-shirts at their high-school, although at this stage the band did not officially exist. Eventually the shirts started selling well, which provided the band with enough money to purchase a drum kit. However none of the band members had any musical experience nor did any of the members own instruments (except Mark who owned a classical guitar). Mike took up playing Bass and because "KJ couldn't sit still long enough to be drummer" he took up playing guitar as well as becoming the lead vocalist for the band. The band in its early stages went through many drummers, however, Jason Hirsh is currently the drummer for the band.

Officially the band started in 1991 and started playing shows in 1992. However, they only played a small number of shows at this stage and decided to concentrate their efforts on practicing. In 1993 the band started playing regularly in venues around Calgary.

In 1996 Chixdiggit! were signed to Sub Pop records. They released their first self-titled album on the record label, however they only lasted a short time on the label. The band left the label as they felt as though they didn't fit in with the record label's ideals. As stated by Mike from the band: "the people that actually had to sell our records and deal with us on a day to day basis were not quite so fond of us".

At this stage Chixdiggit was touring worldwide. They were quickly picked up by Honest Don's Records, a Fat Wreck Chords subsidiary from San Francisco.

After the release of 2000's From Scene to Shining Scene, the band took a hiatus, from which they returned in 2003 and in 2005 the band started writing and recording its fourth full length album, Pink Razors. The album was released April 19, 2005 on Fat Wreck Chords in North American and Bad Taste Records in Europe.

Founding member Mike Eggermont left the band in 2002 and started Blatant Media, a software company. In 2003, drummer Dave Alcock (owner of Sundae Sound recording studio) left the band, and was replaced by the band's original drummer, Jason Hirsch.

On October 31st, 2007, the band released a re-recording of their debut album, Chixdiggit!, on Bad Taste Records. The re-recorded album was titled Chixdiggit! II. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.